


Phonium

by allyndra



Category: Kate and Cecelia - Caroline Stevermer & Patricia Wrede
Genre: Epistolary, F/M, Slice of Life
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-17
Updated: 2020-12-17
Packaged: 2021-03-10 19:34:27
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,014
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28132497
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/allyndra/pseuds/allyndra
Summary: Being a brief look at the of Education and Expectations upon Young Ladies of Quality, including extracts from the intimate diary and correspondence of a Noblewoman
Relationships: Kate Schofield/Thomas Schofield
Comments: 5
Kudos: 30
Collections: Yuletide 2020





	Phonium

**Author's Note:**

  * For [lynnaround](https://archiveofourown.org/users/lynnaround/gifts).



_From the commonplace book of Lady Schofield_  
_14 September 1818_  
_Waycross, Essex_

Thomas, deprived of his usual occupations by our sojourn in Waycross, _will_ keep trying to teach me magic. It is becoming so tiresome that I have begun to question my own distaste for it. Is it possible that Aunt Elizabeth’s harangues against magic and wizards throughout my girlhood have left me so affected? That would be the outside of enough! Especially as the aunt in question is currently quite happily practicing magic alongside her husband. 

And Cecy certainly doesn’t retain any qualms from the speech about Maintaining Upright Principles and Abjuring the Artful Dishonesty of Magic from when we were ten. 

In any case, I have retreated from my sitting room to hide in a corner of the furthest garden. In spring, I’m told, it is vivid with daffodils, but it is currently looking rather sere and grim. It is a pity I shan’t see it in all of its golden splendour, but we plan to be well settled at Skeynes by then. Thomas’s steward writes that the renovations proceed apace (as much as such things can. I’m given to understand that builders exist in a temporal state unaffected by their fellow man, a state in which an estimate of ‘six weeks’ often translates to a reality of ‘five months’. This stretching of time sounds not unlike the experience of being trapped at a tea table with Aunt Charlotte and Reverend Fitzwilliam.)

Ah, I see now the error of my chosen bolthole. With so little greenery in this section of the grounds, I am indeed safe from those admiring the gardens. But no kind branches or vines shield me from the view of my darling husband, whom I espy striding toward me across the lawn. Hey-ho, for another lesson!

-

**16 September 1818**  
**Waycross, Essex**

**__** _Dear Cecy,_

I wish to ask you all manner of badgering questions which will put you out of sorts and force you to remind me that you are more than just a broodmare for the Tarleton heir. So I shall restrain myself and ask none of them save that you tell me honestly how you are doing. 

I must say that you were in excellent looks at Georgy’s wedding. I know that it grieved you that your amber crape frock was cut too narrow to permit the state of your figure, but you suited your olive green muslin dress beautifully. The current styles are such that from several angles, one could not tell that you were increasing at all! 

I will mention (just in case she ever importunes you with her wittering) that Georgy was a trifle put out that James and Oliver were so solicitous upon you. “It is too hard,” she said, “that at my own wedding so many eyes should be turned away from me and toward my cousin.” As if she has never stolen all the attention at someone else’s birthday party or coming out ball! I distracted her by asking after the receipt for the brightening rinse she uses on her hair (which I know she never shall divulge—she guards that rinse like the crown jewels), and by questioning whether she had asked Aunt Elizabeth for a preserving charm to keep her wedding shoes clean. 

And in any case, Daniel’s eyes were all for her, as they should be, so I don’t see that she had any call to fret. 

Enclosed, please find several swatches of fabrics I am considering for my boudoir at Skeynes. You know I rely upon your innate sense of color. If you help me to select the fabric for the bulk of the draperies, I will feel easy in my mind about choosing coordinating shades and prints for the rest. Aunt Charlotte is pressing me to consider Clarence blue, of all things. I know that it is all the crack, but I prefer not to appear corpse-like in my own boudoir! Pray give me your opinion between the coral and the primrose, and I shall be forever in your debt!

When last we spoke, you asked how my magic lessons are proceeding, and I must own that they are going very poorly. When you and Lady Sylvia spoke of the harmonics of a spell or of magic residue, I had no idea that they could be so very loud! I am currently retired to my room with the headache, and for once I am not shamming it in the slightest. The sound is not so very unnerving when Thomas casts a spell, for I feel it more as a throbbing in my ring than as a reverberation in my ears. But when I attempt to cast on my own! It is so loud and discordant! It makes me shudder! Today I was only trying a simple protection charm, but the sound nearly knocked me over. 

I wish I could attend an opera or orchestra to drive the cacophony from my mind to replace it with something better, but there is nothing of the sort nearby. Perhaps when my headache abates, I shall play piano for a time. 

Dorothea Penwood paid a call on me yesterday morning and asked most devotedly to be remembered to you. She is a dear soul. She and Robert have taken a house in the neighborhood. It is the Glasdons’ old place, Marsby Manor, which I recall fondly from summer afternoons spent attempting to teach ourselves to pick locks while the Glasdons were away in Town. Mrs. Glasdon is setting up housekeeping with her sister in London now that she is out of mourning for her husband, which luckily left Marsby Manor available for the young Penwoods. Dorothea is settling in nicely, and seems well contented to be a respectable matron in a small community. Every time I see her, I am grateful that she was spared from Miranda’s machinations along with the rest of us. She and Robert still suit extremely, and sometimes he looks touchingly dazzled when she smiles upon him. It is heartening to see, and always makes me want to smile dazzlingly at my own good husband. 

Do you think that Thomas will be disappointed in me if I ask to be excused from learning more magic? I know only one and a half spells—I can keep my hair up consistently, and I can cast a finding spell about half the times I attempt it. I do not wish him to have a low opinion of me or of my fortitude. Write to me with your advice, for I know you have been most dedicated in your own education. 

_Love,_  
_Kate_

_

_From the commonplace book of Lady Schofield_  
_20 September 1818_  
_Waycross, Essex_

Thomas and I often sit together of an evening. When we have no guests, he does not leave me after supper to smoke or drink port. He doesn’t often smoke, and he can drink quite as easily in my presence as by himself. Last night we were sharing the settee in the library, sitting rather too close for polite company. But as we were alone, we could be as impolite as we liked. 

I had a book in my lap, but I was content to ignore it. I had only chosen it because Mrs. Everslee had said something cutting to me at tea yesterday, insinuating that Cecy and I had got above ourselves since our marriages. She disguised her insult as a mild observation about how nice it must be, to have no greater responsibilities than reading novels and adorning our husbands’ arms at social engagements. I fancy she is distressed that even with so many young ladies of the neighbourhood disposed in marriage (Cecy, Georgy, Dorothea, and I all having married over that last 13 months), Patience still hasn’t risen to the occasion by becoming a sparkling belle. Poor Patience. But it seems that spite is not the best reason to choose reading material, for I found that the novel didn’t hold my interest against such distractions as a well laid fire and my husband at my side. 

Thomas had been relaying to me the gist of his correspondence with some others in the Royal College. He loves delving into puzzles and ferreting out their solutions, and so he was delighted with the current conundrum (something to do with the impact of the dreadful weather two years ago upon the natural ebb and flow of energies in the countryside). I admit that I was thinking more about the effect of the firelight on his sharp, patrician profile than about the effect of an unwontedly wet, cold year on elemental energies. But it is such an elegant profile that I do not think myself in the wrong!

He turned to me to illustrate a point and caught me looking. For a moment he appeared quite arrested, caught between thoughts. He took my hand. “You know that I did not want a biddable wife,” he said.

“That’s lucky,” I replied.

Thomas smiled. “It is. But what I mean, my heart, is that I don’t want you to force you to do things against your will.”

I tipped my face down so that I could look up at him from under my lashes. I had studied Georgy using that look to great effect in the past. “So you’ll never make me host a dinner party again?” I asked sweetly. 

He rolled his eyes. “If I could relieve us from the obligation, I would,” he said. “Blame the rules of society, not me. No, I mean that I am aware that you do not enjoy learning magic. I dislike pressing you to do so. But Kate—” He reached for my other hand, and I let my book fall to the seat beside me. “The dangers to a person with great magical potential and very little training are vast.” 

I protested, “I don’t have great potential!”

“You do, though.” His face was very earnest. “Someday I would like to study your bloodlines, because you, Cecelia, and Oliver all carry depths of power within you.”

“Why doesn’t Oliver have to study then?” I asked. I sounded annoyingly plaintive, I own. 

“Oliver isn’t my wife,” Thomas said smugly. “I have very little influence over him, and I want still less. But _you_ I do care about.”

My heart was warmed, and I resolved to be a more attentive student. “I understand,” I said. “I am convinced of the importance of these studies, if not my own aptitude.” There was a touching relief in his eyes. “Perhaps you would care to join me in my room,” I suggested, “so that we can continue our discussion of how much you care for me.”

Thomas grinned. 

We have learnt not to run through the corridors, as the servants _will_ see us, no matter how we hush our steps and giggles. But we did proceed very quickly to the bedroom, and our discussion was extremely satisfactory.

__

**22 September 1818**  
**Tangleford Hall, Kent**

**__** _Dearest Kate,_

Are you feeling quite well? I ask because you are usually not so goose-witted as to believe that Thomas’s opinion of you would be disrupted by such a minor concern as which lessons you enjoy. Yes, even when the subject is something he values! If he has not already allayed your fears, you can be sure he will do so the moment he learns of them. 

Sadly, I have no counsel for you about how to approach your magic lessons. As late and slapdash as my lessons have been, they have never affected me as yours do you. I find the theory to be fascinating and comprehensible, and the practice to be comfortable. I fear that this is one of those cases, like me with horses and you with music, in which we are simply very different women. 

I comfort myself that we shall always share many important commonalities, like a preference for Charades over cards, an ability to listen to Papa’s most inappropriate stories of the ancients with straight faces, and an affinity for lockpicking. (Did you know, I had nearly forgotten about those summer outings to Marsby Manor? I recall we stole Aunt Charlotte’s hairpins to use as lockpicks and never replaced them. You convinced her that mice must have carried them away. She nearly got a terrier to drive off such bold rodents!)

As your attempts at protective charms discommode you so much, you must allow those who care about you to create them on your behalf! To that end, I am enclosing two new charm bags for you. They are the reason this letter is delayed, as I took especial care with them. The green one is for health and the blue for protection from malicious magic. I thought to make one for prevention of physical accidents, but I don’t know that any charm I could cast would counter your natural affinity for mayhem. Please add a bit of your hair to each bag and seal it up, and then keep it somewhere safe and close, like beneath your pillow. (James says that we’ll need to build a compartment into our bed frame, to keep me from stuffing so many charm bags under the mattress that they create lumps.)

You asked how I was doing, and I am doing very well—large as a house and as awkward as a newborn calf. They call the condition I’m in “interesting,” but I suspect it is only more polite than calling it “shockingly inconvenient.” James has been a brick throughout, although, being James, he has also tried to make plans and decisions without my knowledge more than once. I consider it a habit to break him of, like when Oliver used to chew his shirt cuffs. In any case, I am healthy and strong, and walked ‘round the park every day. I only fear how much larger I may grow; by my count I am not near my time, but I am already quite spherical. 

For your boudoir, the primrose is my choice. It is very pretty on its own, and will also offer a great scope for other colors and fabrics to accompany it. It is such a cheerful shade, and it will make you look golden and lovely!

I spend my days stitching baby gowns at present. I’ve been stitching protective charms into them as I go, and it vexes me how unattractive most of the charms are! One would think that the great scholars and innovators of the past would have created more charms that are both effective and aesthetically pleasing. Perhaps someday I will make a great survey of hedgewitches and the more homely mages to discover if they have prettier ways of doing things that the posh wizards have missed! For now, I confine myself to stitching them to the linings and innermost layers.

Pray give my love to Papa, Oliver, and Aunt Charlotte, and to dear Dorothea. Write me soon and share all of the gossip! 

_Your enormous cousin,_  
_Cecy_

__

**1 October 1818**  
**Waycross, Essex**

**__** _Dear Cecy,_

I have a third spell!! I am nearly overset with excitement, but I will exercise discipline and tell everything in order!

Tuesday was Michaelmas, and so we had goose for supper and a blackberry pie made with the last berries of the season. You know I usually don’t mark traditions overmuch, but I’ve been enjoying them this year. Since we spent last autumn and winter abroad on our wedding trip, every holiday and observation this year is the first one I’ve spent in England with Thomas, and that makes them somehow more worthy of celebration. Even minor ones like Michaelmas.

We were lingering at table, savoring the last of our pie when the storm hit. The thunder was immense! Great loud cracks of it, with lightning that lit the sky like midday. Did you have rain like that in Kent, as well? It seems as though you must have, for a storm so great could surely not spend its fury in one small county!

Not an hour after the storm struck, while we were watching the progress of the lightning from the sitting room windows, we received word that the neighboring villagers had sent for Thomas. A waggon that had been carrying a small family had been washed away and was being born toward the lake! The villagers had tried to halt it, but apparently the mud, water, and threat of lightning were thwarting their strongest horses and most stalwart men. And so, they reasoned that a wizard might have other methods available to him, and sought Thomas’s help. 

As you know, Thomas can display a tendency toward heroics at any time. But in this case, the foe was the weather, which he had been neck-deep in researching for weeks as he studied the Year Without a Summer. So it was the work of a moment for the villagers to convince him to lend his support. He looked quite dashing as he put on his warmest coat and his least valuable hat and set off to rescue that family!

I got no rest that night. Because I know you will not judge me for it, I can confess to you that I don’t sleep as well alone now as I do with Thomas by my side. I know it isn’t fashionable to be so very in love with one’s husband, but so be it. Even had he been safely in bed, though, the noise of the storm would have kept me up. It crashed and boomed all the night long. Finally as dawn crested, the storm began to fade. It did so in sullen fits and starts, with the rain stopping for an hour together and then pouring again for fifteen minutes, as though it had never left.

I was taking breakfast alone, tired but well wrapped in an extra shawl against the gloom. The cook’s girl Jane—do you remember Mrs. Bell, who cooked for the De Laceys and made that marvelous duck dish? We’ve hired her sister, a Mrs. Lewis, as our cook while we’re here. She has a lovely way of dressing a joint of meat. Her daughter Jane is a stout girl of ten who helps in the scullery—came in with her hands twisted in her apron and her face a tragedy of tears. 

“Lady Kate,” she sobbed (she’s been told it’s correct to call me Lady Schofield, but like many of the others who remember me as the local hoyden, she finds it easier to call me Lady Kate. I rather like it!). “Lady Kate, the kitchen dogs have lost themselves!”

It took a bit of work to get the tale from her, but eventually it came out that one working dog from the kitchen and its mate, a bitch heavy with pups, had somehow got out in the night and were nowhere to be found. With the intensity of the storm, Jane feared they had been crushed under a downed tree or struck by lightning and burnt up. Thomas had not yet returned home, and the servants were all too busy with their own work to search, so I told her that I would. As I’m no great horsewoman, I put on my sturdiest boots and an extra flannel petticoat, filled a pocket handkerchief with dried meat, and set out into the wet. 

And Cecy, it was so wet! It was as though the whole place had been washed in grey and brown, so saturated was it with mud and dingy water. I started with the yard, and then expanded my search outward around the grounds. I was quite systematic about it, to ensure that I didn’t neglect any cozy hiding spots in which the dogs might have taken shelter. The whole time, I called their names, Cricket and Donny, and brandished my handkerchief of meat. 

There is a shrubbery to the east of the house, just where the ground slopes downward. I fear you will not be surprised at all to hear that I tripped as I approached this slope and tumbled right down into the shrubbery. I turned my ankle and found myself thoroughly tangled in the roots and branches of the shrubbery. It was most uncomfortable. Mud and water began immediately seeping through my clothing, and my ankle ached in a sharp way that told me it would require me to walk with a stick for at least a week. However, it was not all a loss, as I discovered the missing dogs denned down in a hole beneath the bushes, along with four pups born in the deluge. They were wary of me at first, but my gift of dried meat soon won them over!

Any other day, this entire fiasco would have merely been one more story of my clumsiness. Mrs. Fitz would have chided me to be more ladylike when next I took tea at the vicar’s, and Thomas would have tried to coddle me without appearing to coddle me. But on this particular day, no one knew where I was. The household staff only knew that I had set out to find the dogs, and it wouldn’t occur to them to worry for my absence. I tried to be stoic and patient as I lay there in the mud and branches, with dogs (really, very filthy dogs) huddling near me. But the truth is, I was excessively miserable. The discomfort of being at once cold, wet, in pain, and embarrassed was dreadful. 

I tried to distract myself by reciting poems and singing snatches of songs, but my attention was severely lacking. I don’t know how long I lay there before I thought to call for Thomas. It felt like hours, but it may well have been only minutes. Something about the line of verse I had just finished reminded me of an incantation I’d been trying (and failing) to learn. For some reason, in that moment I felt very sure I could do it. So I did.

Cecy, it was still loud and off-puttingly discordant, but it worked! I could feel my magic surging through me and spreading to seek Thomas. It called him so loudly that, I later learned, he heard it from the village, where he’d been warming himself with a pot of tea after a long night’s work and a short morning’s rest. He came as quick as ever he could, which was still a bit of an interval. But it felt so much more hopeful to be waiting _knowing_ he was coming. 

He ran right to me, spattered in mud and soaked to the knee. “Kate, what have you done to yourself?” he demanded. I lay there, covered in dirt and dogs, and smiled up at him.

“I’ve called you home,” I said. And he smiled so proudly!

He carried me back to the house, and we dispatched a stable boy to take a wheelbarrow to rescue the dogs. I spent the rest of the day in bed with a posset and a hot water bottle, so this is my first chance to write you. I’m so pleased! Even if I never learn another spell, one that brings Thomas to me is already a great power! 

I thank you for your charm bag, for I believe I would surely have a cold now were it not for you guarding my health! 

_Love,_  
_Kate_

__

Postscript - Ten Years Later  
_Translation of a coded shawl from Lady Sylvia, received in a parcel on 14 July 1828_

Dear Kate,

Fear not, this message is not encoded for any nefarious purpose. I simply think it best that you stay in practice. Your recent adventures have me thinking once again about your magic, and the difficulty you have with it. Has Thomas suggested one of the disciplines that uses music to cast spells? Perhaps you could harness the resonances you hear, rather than struggling against them. I recommend _Campanology and Cantrips_ by Isaac Thistlewaite as a starting point. Please keep me apprised of your progress.

Yours sincerely,  
_Lady Sylvia Schofield_


End file.
